Dark Worlds

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make blog posts this week. I haven't even had time to watch videos on YouTube until last night. And, having watched all of Michael Bonacini's Dark World videos, it makes me want to play Dark Worlds when they come out.

I mean, all of the complex plays that the deck can pull off and how it forces you to find the best order in which to make certain moves makes the deck seem very challenging to play, which I like. The deck can also be teched out fairly easily, which means that at least some creativity in deck building is rewarded.

There's just three problems I have with the deck...

It's too dependent on Grapha. If you don't draw or can't search out Grapha, then you can't really accomplish anything against faster decks. Also, that means that if your Grapha(s) get banished, you can't really do much. You can still gain a bunch of advantage with discard effects, but it's empty advantage.

It's too easy to Side Deck against Dark Worlds; banish the Graphas and you win. D.D. Crow, Debunk, Soul Release, Crevice Into the Different Dimension, Kycoo, Dimensional Fissure, Dimensional Prison, and such are viable Side Deck cards that can wreck Grapha. There's also stuff like Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror and Consecrated Light, but those aren't really as good against these newer builds that only use one Dark World Lightning...

What is perhaps the worst thing about the deck is the mirror match. In the Dark World mirror match, you can't use Card Destruction, Morphing Jar, Dark World Dealings, or Dragged Down into the Grave (okay, maybe you can use Dragged Down if your opponent is incompetent...). So your only discard outlets become Gate, Lightning, and possibly Raven. Unfortunately, Gate can be destroyed by an opposing Gate.

Siding into additional Lightnings may be a decent idea, as your opponent could be Setting all of your Spells/Traps to avoid Dragged Down, making Lightning more live. But still, you'd be depending on like six cards to function as your discard outlets, and while Gate can be used more than once, it probably won't live that long.

Even with these problems, I'm still going to try out the deck. The thing is that I haven't quite yet figured out what type of build I would use. I don't have Tour Guides or Fabled Ravens, so those are out of the question. Any other build is plausible, though. I'd definitely use Dragged Down, since it's amazing, but I've been pondering about how to build the deck from there.

I'm thinking a Stun-esque build so that I can win without Grapha, on the off chance that I can't access it. I'd probably use Dimensional Prisons and other Stun cards to support the Level 4 Dark Worlds, which are decent beaters (like Scraps...). This would probably lessen the problem with the mirror match, but we'll have to see...

Tournament Report 9/24/11

As usual, I went to locals today with my T.G. Zombies deck. I just changed a few Side Deck cards, such as adding Rai-Ohs and a second Chain Disappearance.

There were about twenty people there today. Not much else to talk about...

Round 1: vs Newbie Dragunities

-Duel 1: He used Dux to get Phalanx, then dropped Inferno Reckless Summon to enable him to make Red Nova Dragon. On my turn, I dropped Striker, Warwolf, and Tengu to make Trishula, removing the last card in his hand and his Dragon Ravine. Then, I Creature Swapped him my Tengu to take his Red Nova. Yeah, he couldn't do much top-decking.

-Duel 2: He didn't draw his Dragon Ravine, so he lost.

Round 2: vs The Deck Formerly Known as Tengu Plants

Seriously, there's only four Plants now. And, this was my Round 3 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: I stopped his Sangan search by stealing it with Mind Control and overlaying it with my Spirit Reaper (after ripping a card out of his hand) for Leviair. After that died, I made a Revived King Ha Des, Steelswarm Roach, and Creature Swapped his Gachi Gachi Gantetsu. He didn't have the Dark Hole, so I won.

-Duel 2: I had complete control of the whole game. I had like four cards on him for most of the duel, and he couldn't do anything that I didn't have an answer to. I was holding an Effect Veiler, a D.D. Crow, and a Maxx "C" in my six-card hand, but I didn't even need to use them.

Round 3: vs Lightsworn

I was up against vadangchoinga this round. I would say that his deck is a Twilight deck, but he told me that he only ran one Chaos Sorcerer.

-Duel 1: I killed the first two Judgment Dragons, but died to Black Luster Soldier and its double attack.

-Duel 2: Trishula removed a bunch of his cards, and Rai-Oh protected me from his Chaos Sorcerer, since he forgot to summon Jain to run it over first.

-Duel 3: I attacked his Set Necro Gardna with Rai-Oh, then directly with T.G. Rush Rhino. He dropped Gorz and its Token. He summoned Glow-Up Bulb, and I was forced to use Torrential Tribute, as I had a Light-Imprisoning Mirror active. He used Monster Reincarnation to take back the Gorz. I just kept Setting Monsters to build up my field, and he kept passing to keep that Gorz live. I ended up making a Trishula, but I missed the Gorz, so I kept building up my field. After that, I made a Decisive Armor. He had drawn into a Wulf and a Judgment Dragon with only two Lightsworn in the Graveyard and 4150 LP. So, Decisive Armor's third effect would've killed him if he dropped Gorz (the Kaien Token is Light), but Decisive Armor's attack would've killed him if he didn't drop Gorz. Ally of Justice Decisive Armor is amazing.

Round 4: vs Stun

This was my Round 4 opponent from this tournament. There were only three undefeated players left, so we agreed to a split. We assumed that the third undefeated player would lose this round, letting this be the finals.

-Duel 1: I got run over by Rai-Oh and Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo. If it were one or the other, it'd be fine, but it had to be both. So, I lost this duel, but it didn't matter, since I side into anti-Stun...

-Duel 2: I drew all of my Mystical Space Typhoons to pick off his back rows as he Set them. Rai-Oh and Tengu were able to control the duel with that, and Trishula finished him off.

-Duel 3: I was able to control the duel with Monsters, slowly picking away at his LP. His Dimensional Fissure was pretty useless, since I didn't even use my Zombies.

Okay, so the third undefeated player, who was my Round 2 opponent from this tournament, ended up "winning" the previous round. In actuality, his Round 4 opponent gave him the win... So, I reluctantly decided to split with him...

Round 5: vs Watts

-Duel 1: I simply beat him down with Zombies, then dropped Trishula to finish him off.

-Duel 2: I build up my field while under Swords of Revealing Light so that I could OTK him after it wore off, using Trap Stun to stop his Rivalry of Warlords and Gozen Match.

That finals was a joke, since he didn't really deserve to be there. But, I guess that luck plays a huge factor in a children's card game like this...

Regardless, I got 1st place and some store credit, which I used to get a Generation Force: Special Edition pack, pulling a Spore, which I was going for. In the packs themselves, I pulled a Super Crashbug (Yugilo, you can have it if you decide to play Crashbugs again) and an Ultra Rare Wind-Up Zenmaister. It's really cool, but it's too bad I'll never find a use for it...

After the tournament, I hung out with vadangchoinga and another friend (my Round 3 opponent from this tournament). I arranged a trade with vadangchoinga, then played a match against my other friend.

In the first duel, I dropped Decisive Armor, but it got Veiled. On the next turn, he made a Black Rose Dragon to destroy the field, which left him with four Fairies in grave. That let him drop Kristya and get back Hyperion. Unfortunately for him, that Black Rose Dragon play got me two Goblin Zombie searches, which got me a Spirit Reaper and my third Goblin Zombie. Even worse for him is that I drew Pot of Duality for my turn, getting me a Creature Swap. With no other cards to deal with that, he scooped.

In the second duel, I made a Trishula, which got Veiled. Later in the duel, I made Decisive Armor. Since I had more than one card in my hand, I went through the unnecessary actions of making a Brionac using the extra cards in my hand before discarding the last card in my hand for Decisive Armor's third effect. He ended up having a Hyperion, Kristya, and Honest in hand with only 5900 LP left. Ally of Justice Decisive Armor is amazing.

Random Stuff #36

I've been pretty busy the past few days because I just moved to a new home, so I haven't been able to get on the computer as much. It will only get worse once school starts up, again.

Really, I shouldn't be awake this late at night (really, early in the morning, as it's after midnight). I just have nothing better to do, and I don't have to wake up early tomorrow (really, today, as it's after midnight). At least it's given me time to edit some duel videos, which shall go up on my main channel over the next few days.

Other than that, I haven't touched my deck since locals. I'd like to find the time to find the room for the second Chain Disappearance and perhaps Maxx "C"s, but that's not too important at the moment.

The problem I'm having is that I want to make a Side Deck that I can test at locals when it comes time for the next Regional (fortunately, it's before Dark Worlds become broken). Unfortunately, my locals is completely different from a Regional. There's far fewer Agent Fairy players (and the ones that play the deck aren't very good, from what I've seen) and far more Lightsworn decks. At the Regional that I was at a couple weeks ago, all of the Lightsworn decks were at the bottom tables, along with most of the Stun-based decks. But, it's a lot easier to sack through a five-round local tournament compared to a ten-round Regional.

As such, my Side Deck has been geared more towards hating on Lightsworn, with anti-Agent cards taking more of a back seat. Then I just tossed in random stuff like Smashing Ground and Dimensional Prison to deal with rogue match-ups. It's worked pretty well, but I'd like to side a little more for Agents, and also for the deck formerly known as Plant Synchro (there's only four Plants in the deck now...). So, I may gear my Side Deck more towards Regionals, now.

Maxx "C" and Chain Disappearance deal with both of those decks very effectively, so they're going to take up a good chunk of the Side Deck. Kycoo has been useless, so I might have to drop them in favor of Rai-Oh and such. The rest can be anti-Light and anti-Stun cards, I suppose.

Either way, I'm still considering dropping the T.G. Zombie deck in favor of something else. It's like when I played Zombies in the Lightsworn/Zombie format; the deck worked, but I didn't really feel like playing it, but I couldn't figure out another deck to play. I may use Dark Worlds once they come to the TCG. Tour Guide-less, of course.

The problem is that I don't like how one-dimensional Dark Worlds are. There may be several ways to pull off their big combos, but they all end the same: Grapha spam. While I don't like that, it's the best way to play the deck, unfortunately. So I'll probably end up not playing the deck (competitively, at least), since I don't like one-dimensional decks like that, even ones that require thought.

Anyway, I still want to change the T.G. Zombie deck a lot, if I continue to play it. It just doesn't really feel complete to me. It feels as though something needs to be changed about the deck; I'm not just sure what, exactly.